My blue regal tang looks like it may be developing a case of ich. It doesn't look too bad yet but I can see a few scattered white spots on both sides of her body. My question is, will my scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp take care of this or should she be quarantined and treated or my whole tank treated? I do not have a quarantine tank and do not want to put my blue regal or any of my other fish under any unnecessary stress. They are in a 20 gallon tank, not big enough I know, this is only TEMPORARY. It's a small regal, maybe 2 or 2 and a half inches. Tank mates are a pair of clowns and a couple of chromis with cleaner shrimp a snail and hermits
Blue Regal Tang Ich
- Thread starter aholley19
- Start date
Don't rely on the shrimp, and don't treat the whole tank. Copper based ich treatments will ruin the rock for future reef tank use.
If you can catch the fish to isolate and treat without stressing it too much, you can do that. If it is minor, though, most people (me included) would advise you to feed it heavily, as a healthy fish can deal with the ich and get over it just fine. I would also suggest you pick up some Seachem Focus and Metro (Metro is an anti-parasitic, Focus is used to help bind it to the food). Treat the food, not the water. Since you don't have a QT, all you can really do is keep the fish eating and stress-free as much as possible. Unfortunately, the only sure way to rid a tank of ich once it has been introduced is to remove all the fish, treat them outside the DT, and leave the tank fallow (no livestock) for about 6 weeks. Once you break the life cycle it will be gone... until you introduce the next fish without quarantining it.
Even though it is temporary, you have a high bioload for a 20g. Without plenty of religiously done water changes (and preferably a very good skimmer) you are headed for water quality problems. Tangs are waste producing machines.
BTW, if you need help or have questions I'm pretty close to Rockmart.
If you can catch the fish to isolate and treat without stressing it too much, you can do that. If it is minor, though, most people (me included) would advise you to feed it heavily, as a healthy fish can deal with the ich and get over it just fine. I would also suggest you pick up some Seachem Focus and Metro (Metro is an anti-parasitic, Focus is used to help bind it to the food). Treat the food, not the water. Since you don't have a QT, all you can really do is keep the fish eating and stress-free as much as possible. Unfortunately, the only sure way to rid a tank of ich once it has been introduced is to remove all the fish, treat them outside the DT, and leave the tank fallow (no livestock) for about 6 weeks. Once you break the life cycle it will be gone... until you introduce the next fish without quarantining it.
Even though it is temporary, you have a high bioload for a 20g. Without plenty of religiously done water changes (and preferably a very good skimmer) you are headed for water quality problems. Tangs are waste producing machines.
BTW, if you need help or have questions I'm pretty close to Rockmart.
Okay. It'll be a few days before I'll be able to go all the way to hiram to the lfs and get any medicine. Until then I'll just keep an eye on it and make sure it's fed really well and try to do a water change to try to clear it up. I have a 55 in the works but it won't be set up or ready for a few months if not longer probably. Did have a 30 long that was going to be another temporary home and was borderline finished cycling till another crack branched out from an original crack I "fixed" and it sprung a rather catastrophic leak. I'm having to back up and punt now. All the rock and chromis from my 30 are now in my 20 as of yesterday (which may have caused the stress that led to ich?) :/ Thanks for the advice though. Greatly appreciated
My Regal Tang used to get ich every time he got stressed out. It never got worse than a couple spots and he always ate. I added a Seachem vitamin supplement and it cleared up on it's own in a few days. As long as it's eating and swimming fine I would let it be. In my experience moving it would stress it out more and potentially aggravate the problem. From what I understand it's pretty common in this species and not a huge cause for concern.
Well, it looks better today! It's almost like the ich came with the stress and then just vanished overnight. I fed them last night and again soon as I got home from work today and the regal is still eating like a pig so I assume there's no need for alarm? Almost all of the white spots are gone too. Still gonna do a water change though soon as I get some more salt
